Operation 2005-02 (Mobilization)
OES-2005-LAW-0170
22 April 2005
Mariposa County
Debbie Breitenstein (OL)
The pager went off on 22 April 2005 at 2230. Sgt. Mike Kirkland
stated that there was a call for mutual aid and requested a call
back. Tom Roseman returned the call, and I sent out a page to
notify the Group that Tom was closing the loop. The search was
for Doug Pearse, who was lost in the Fish Camp area near Wawona,
California. Little information was available in the initial communications.
At 2240, Carol Burge agreed to be the coordinator, and I agreed
to be the leader. Carol proceeded to call through the list.
Many Group members were out on official travel or other training
and recreational trips. By 2330, only Dave Miles had committed
in addition to me. I called Dave to discuss the limited team
and the implications of the drive. It was 2330 already, the team
was requested for 0800, and we thought that the five-hour drive
to and from the search with two days of searching would result
in hazardous driving because we had no additional drivers to take
shifts. We decided that we did not have enough manpower to support
this effort and declined the operation. Sgt. Kirkland agreed.Note: Dan Bishop took a team the following weekend and
received more information about the subject and the situation.

Operation 2005-03 (Search)OES-2005-LAW-0170
29-30 April 2005
Mariposa County
Dan Bishop (OL)
I got the call from Tom Sakai on Friday at 1300 for a search in
Mariposa County. Sakai could not go, so I took the operation
and called Sgt. Mike Kirkland. This was a continuation of the
search that started after Doug Pearse went missing on 21 April.
The mutual aid request from Mariposa County asked for those responding
to be at the Command Post (CP) at 0800 Saturday morning. The
CP was located in the Ponderosa Basin Subdivision between the
towns of Mariposa and Oakhurst.
Because of the anticipated 5-hour drive, we would need to leave
Ridgecrest by 1800. Sheila Rockwell agreed to be the coordinator
and started making the calls. Bob Huey was the only one to commit.
We left the Hut at 1815 and arrived at the CP at 2300. We borrowed
a couple of cots from the San Bernardino team (they had 27 members
present) and spent the night next to a bubbling stream.
At the briefing the next morning, we learned that the 84-year-old
Mr. Pearse's vehicle was found stuck and burned on a rugged dirt
roadway at 5600 feet elevation. Investigation indicated that
the fire was caused by a mechanical problem. Further investigation
indicated that Mr. Pearse's mental capacity had appeared to be
diminished before the day he went missing.
Our search assignment was bounded by a road and the intersection
of two streams about 1 mile from the place last seen. Terry,
Dan, and Loren from San Bernardino were added to our team. We
were transported to our assignment in four-wheel-drive vehicles
because of the rugged and slippery roads. En route, we came upon
a Sierra Madre vehicle that had slid off the road and was perched
precariously with its front wheels about 4 feet off the ground
and its rear bed against a large tree. The driver was OK, and
the vehicle was extracted with only a little blemish on its bed.

We started searching about 0930 where we encountered terrain that
was moderate (but steep
and muddy around the streams) with areas of heavy brush and snow.
We completed the assignment without finding anything significant
by 1600 and were transported back to be de-briefed. At 1700,
the sheriff suspended the search indefinitely.
We were on the road by 1730 and back at the Hut at 2230. Al Green
served as coordinator for Saturday during the day and passed it
on to Terry Mitchell, who wrapped it up that evening.
About 93 searchers were in the field on Saturday. Mariposa County
ran a well organized search.

Operation 2005-05 (Mobilization)26 June 2005
Hetch Hetchy
Tom Sakai (OL)
At 1630 on Sunday, June 26, I got a call from Sheila Rockwell,
who had responded to a call from
Sgt. Mike Kirkland, Kern County Sheriff's Department (KCSD), with
a mutual aid request for assistance on a search for an overdue
hiker. The request was from Yosemite National Park (YNP) for
the continuing search for Michael Ficery who had been missing
for more than a week. He was originally reported missing on June
21, two days after his wilderness permit expired. He was last
seen on June 15 on the trail along his planned itinerary. His
backpack had been found several days earlier outside his itinerary.
YNP was looking for additional resources to replace tired searchers
for one last day of searching. Sheila agreed to coordinate.
Only Al Green was able to go. Because our participation would
be for just one day, the drive was 6 hours one way, and there
were only two of us, I opted not to participate.

Operation 2005-06 (Search)18-19 July 2005
China Lake
Linda Finco (OL)
Most CLMRG members had heard the news of the two F/A-18 E/F Super
Hornets from Lemoore that crashed in a training exercise over
the northern ranges of China Lake around noon on Monday, July
18. The resulting wildfire was visible for days. Early reports
stated that the two occupants of the F/A-18 F had been rescued
and taken to the local hospital. The pilot of the single seater
F/A-18 E, however, had not been found.
At 1900, CLMRG was contacted by CDR Henderson, US Navy. He requested
our assistance the following morning if the missing pilot was
not found in the continuing search that night. CLMRG contacted
Sgt. Mike Kirkland to get the proper approval to assist the Navy
in the search. The sheriff also offered the services of team
members from Indian Wells Valley Search and Rescue (IWVSAR) and
the Desert Unit. Members from CLMRG and IWVSAR had access to
the base, and I offered to help get the Desert Unit the visitor's
badges that would be required to get them on base. CDR Henderson
asked us to meet at the Range Control Center (RCC) at 0800 the
next morning.
All three teams checked in at the RCC with CDR Henderson at 0730.
CDR Henderson briefed us on the accident and provided a list
of GPS waypoints of the crash sites and potential search areas.
He asked us to send a team to the waypoint of the single-seater
crash site to search in that high probability area for the pilot.
The other teams would search from where the other two pilots
were rescued on Monday to the site of the single-seater crash
(doing a zigzag grid search across the terrain and noting GPS
waypoints of debris and any evidence that might help in finding
the pilot).
The China Lake Police Department (CLPD) escorted the teams to
their search command site south of the Mountain Springs Canyon
Road. We were briefed on the previous days activities and told
about the current fire activity in the area. We departed for
the search area at 0900. We set up base camp on the Mountain
Springs Canyon Road below the waypoint of the single-seater crash
site and a relay at a camera station at Chukar Point. The relay
became the starting point for the other ground teams to descend
to the two-seater crash and pilot pickup waypoints to begin their
grid search. The relay also had communication with the CLPD search
command.
Teams started searching at 0930. Teams in the vicinity of the
two-seater crash soon realized that range personnel from NAVAIR
were also searching in the area (they had been searching the previous
day also and were being coordinated from the RCC). Two NAVAIR
personnel found the missing pilot at approximately 1125 and contacted
the nearby CLMRG team by voice. The pilot had died in the crash.
CLPD search command was notified of the find, and the China Lake
SAR helicopter responded shortly after. A grid search of the
area to locate additional evidence found nothing.
The search teams returned to base. During the return hike to
base, two Desert Unit members began to suffer from the heat, so
base asked the helicopter to evacuate them at 1350. The helicopter
picked up the two men at 1440 and transported them to the Ridgecrest
hospital. Both were treated and released.
All teams were out of the field at 1658. CLMRG returned to the
CLPD search command site for a debrief and then returned to Ridgecrest.
We were back at the Hut by 1830.Comments:1. The Desert Unit had to leave two of their quads below Chukar
Point. China Lake range personnel will assist in retrieving the
vehicles after the all clear from the fire. Most of the terrain
was not really suited for searching with quads, but they were
helpful in transporting the two heat related injuries to an area
where the helicopter could land easily.
2. During the briefing with CLPD search command, we asked about
the fire situation. We were told that the fire had cleared the
Chukar Point area and that the search area would also be clear.
As it turned out, teams had to cross a fire line on the way to
Chukar Point. The China Lake Fire Department (CLFD) and BLM were
in the area monitoring the fire. The fire did not appear to be
a major risk, but it was still a little unnerving to proceed into
the fire area to set up the relay and begin the search. After
the recovery, CLFD requested that all unnecessary personnel leave
the Chukar Point area.
3. The satellite phone worked great. Karen Botham probably received
more calls and updates than she would have on a normal operation
because I tested the phone often.

Operation 2005-07 (Mobilization)Yosemite National Park
11 August 2005
Tom Roseman (OL)
The pager went off early in the evening of Thursday, August 11
with Dave Pope from Yosemite National Park (YNP) calling for help
on a search in Hetch Hetchy for a 22-year-old male hiker who had
been due out on August 9. I called Dave back, and he gave us
the option of showing up either Friday morning or Saturday morning
at 0600. I opted for Saturday. Dave agreed to call the Office
of Emergency Services (OES) and have them call the Kern County
Sheriff to release us. Tom Sakai, Dan Bishop, Mike Franklin,
and Linda Finco committed to the operation, and Karen Botham agreed
to be the coordinator. I had wanted to spend the weekend with
Sakai at his Mammoth Lakes condominium, so I planned to drive
up Friday morning to meet him. Dan Bishop agreed to lead the
rest of the team up Friday evening and meet us at Sakai's place.
I went to bed that night, and because I didn't hear from the sheriff
the next morning, I called Sgt. Kirkland. I found out that the
subject had walked into a trail block and was alive and well despite
being lost for a few days.
Sgt. Kirkland had a new message from Tulare County wanting help
in Sequoia National Park.
I called Finco, who agreed to lead that operation, and Debbie
Breitenstein and I headed to Mammoth
to spend the weekend hiking and climbing with the Sakais.

Operation 2005-08 (Search)OES-05-LAW-0362 (05-08)
12-13 August 2005
Tulare County
Linda Finco (OL)
We were scheduled to leave for Hetch Hetchy later in the day for
a search. Tom Roseman called at 0750 to tell me that the young
man in the Hetch Hetchy search had been found alive. Our assistance,
however, had been requested for a search in Tulare County. Dan
Bishop and Dave Miles committed to the search, and Karen Botham
coordinated the callout.
I called the Tulare County Sheriff, who said the command post
would call back with more details. Around 0900, I received a
call from Lt. Logue. The search was still proceeding, and I got
directions to the command post. I told the sheriff that we would
leave Ridgecrest around 1100 and arrive at the command post around
1600 and that we would be available for an evening or night assignment.
At the command post, we were briefed on the subject, 42-year-old
Brian Lewis, a white male, 5'11" and 163 pounds, in excellent
condition. Lewis was described as a paranoid schizophrenic who
had been off his medication for an unknown length of time. He
had talked about doing a 40-day fast as Jesus did in the Bible.
Lewis had left his parents' home in Dunlap, California (Fresno
County) on Sunday, August 7 and had been reported missing to the
Fresno County Sheriff later that day.
On Monday, August 8, cabin owners saw Lewis just west of Whitaker
Forest, and he was seen again in the same area on Tuesday, August
9. Later that day, Lewis's vehicle was found at Quail Flat, and
Park Service personnel located a black backpack in a bear box
at the Redwood Meadow Canyon Trailhead that was later identified
as his. (Family members identified the pack, but it was also
identified by a Bible with Lewis's name in it.) On August 11,
there had been numerous sightings of Lewis along the Big Meadows
and Horse Corral Roads. All these sightings were within a 5-
to 6-mile radius of Quail Flat, where Lewis's vehicle had been
found.

After the briefing, we were assigned to walk the Ten Mile Road,
where Lewis had been seen earlier that day. The assignment was
to have two people hike out front, and the third person would
stay back about 100 feet to look for Lewis. Based on information
the sheriff had been receiving, Lewis would be seen walking on
a road, but as soon as he saw someone coming, he would duck off
the road into the brush until the people passed. So the idea
was to have the person lagging behind maybe observe Lewis ducking
on and off the road. We were also told to remove our orange shirts,
keep our radios out of sight and the volume low, and just pretend
to be hikers or campers out for a walk. Although we had a photocopy
of a letter from his mother requesting him to end his adventure
and come home to show him if he seemed willing to talk, we were
not to confront him, only to radio a GPS position
As we prepared our packs for the assignment, we were reassigned
to go with a deputy sheriff to interview an eyewitness at the
Hume Lake store. The eyewitness had reported seeing a man fitting
Lewis's description (a man wearing black shorts and a black T-shirt).
We were then to go to the place last seen and try to find tracks
to follow. We had a fuzzy photocopy of Lewis's footprint.
During the interview, the place last seen was said to be a turnout
near the Boyden Cave in Kings River Canyon (a good distance outside
of the search area but not unreasonable). We searched all the
turnouts near Boyden Cave and didn't find a track matching our
photocopy. We returned to base.
The next day, the sheriff said they were taking a different approach
to the search. Because Lewis seemed to be actively avoiding people,
the sheriff decided to have a passive search-a stakeout. Searchers
would be placed along predetermined waypoints on the roads that
Lewis had been seen on. Searchers would hide themselves and watch
the road. If Lewis were spotted, the position would be radioed
to the command post, and the command post would direct other teams
to the area to try to confine him. Again, the volunteers were
not to confront Lewis; only the deputies would. Later, the sheriff
would bring in a helicopter with infrared capability to try to
locate him.
We (China Lake) were given three positions on Huckleberry Road.
We got to our positions around 0800 and stayed there until 1730.
Lewis was not seen on any of the roads staked out that day, although
eyewitnesses put Lewis in the Grant Grove area during the day.
After the debriefing, all volunteer teams were released. The
search would continue but only by the Tulare County deputies.
We left at 1830, stopped for dinner in Tulare, and got back to
the Hut at 2300.Comments:1. Our satellite phone worked in the area. The sheriff brought
in an OES satellite dish and phone system for the search command
post (something to keep in mind for remote areas).
2. I don't think either Fresno County or Tulare County could have
done anything more in the search. When looking for a person who
does not want to be found or who does not want to interface with
others, so that he actively avoids confronting people, searching
becomes difficult. We talked about just putting "plain clothes"
searchers in and around the areas Lewis had been seen (Grant Grove,
Hume Lake, cabin areas, etc). That's not the kind of searching
we train for, but we can do it easily.

Operation 2005-09 (Search)SR05 - 31558 (05-09)
8 September 2005
Inyokern
Tom Sakai (OL)
At 1130 on Thursday, September 8, I got a call from Al Green asking
me if I had heard the page from Sgt. Mike Kirkland of KCSD. Sgt.
Kirkland wanted us to help search for a missing 4-year-old boy,
Dustin Kirk, in Inyokern. The boy had last been seen at 0730
that morning near the family compound wearing a diaper and T-shirt.
He was barefoot at the time. The family realized the boy was
missing around 0930-1000 and began a search. Unable to find him,
they called KCSD for assistance.
I agreed to take the operation and got Mary Schmerier to coordinate
and Janet Westbrook and Carol Burge to telephone. Al Green, Bud
Gates, and Dave Miles committed initially. We met at the Hut
at 1215, were on our way by 1230, and arrived at the family home
about 1300. Several KCSD and highway patrol personnel were already
on scene and had searched outbuildings in the compound and several
nearby abandoned buildings. We were subsequently joined by the
KCSD helicopter, IWVSAR, KCSD SAR from Bakersfield, and some KCSD
civilian volunteers.
After some discussion, we started cutting for sign in a quarter-mile
perimeter around the place last seen (PLS), hoping to get a direction
of travel. Within a half-hour, Green and Miles found some small
barefoot tracks, about the size of a 4-year-old's, along one of
the dirt roads. Only the middle of the roads were not covered
by tire tracks from the vehicles driving to the family home or
searching for Dustin. Consequently, only intermittent footprints
were found. After a while, the tracks seemed to reverse themselves
and return. We tracked these intermittent prints until they disappeared
near the water tank in the southwest part of the property.
At 1430, a second CLMRG team, consisting of Dan Bishop, Debbie
Breitenstein, Mike Franklin,
Tom Roseman, and Eric Toler, arrived. We decided to do a larger
perimeter search about a mile or so around the PLS. We split
into three teams. One would search in a clockwise direction starting
to the south and west. A second would search in a counter-clockwise
direction. A third would do a thorough search around some of
the nearby abandoned homesteads.
After about two hours, the counter-clockwise team (Roseman, Miles,
and Toler) found some more of the right-size barefoot tracks on
a dirt road about a mile from the home. They tracked these for
about another mile and found Dustin sleeping under a creosote
bush at about 1700. He was slightly sunburned and dehydrated
but otherwise OK. After giving him something to drink and checking
him for possible medical problems, we returned him to his home.
While the others enjoyed dinner at Bernardino's Restaurant in
Inyokern, I returned home so that I could go on my planned mountain
trip that evening.
About the time Dustin was found, a third CLMRG team, consisting
of Walter Runkle, Bob Huey, Dave Doerr, and Curtis Davis, was
organizing to join the search. We told them they could stand
down.Note: Dustin seemed to do most, if not all, of his walking
on the dirt roads. Vehicle tracks covered all but the center
of the roads, which made tracking difficult. Fortunately, Dustin
sometimes walked in the center of the roads.

Operation 2005-10 (Search)12-13 October 2005
El Paso Mountains (Garlock)
Tom Roseman (OL)
Linda Finco responded to a request from Sgt. Mike Kirkland over
the pager for assistance in a search for a missing man. Carol
Burge signed on as coordinator and called me looking for a leader
because Finco was going out of town on work related travel. I
took the operation.
Debbie Breitenstein, Walter Runkle, Daryl Hinman, Mike Franklin,
Werner Hueber, and I met
Sgt. Kirkland on Highway 14 at the turnoff to EP15 at 0800 the
next morning. We were looking for
24-year-old Christopher Hise, a Ridgecrest man missing since October
1. We, with members of the IWVSAR team, drove about seven miles
to the Burro Schmidt Tunnel. The search was to start from Hise's
truck, where he had left a note saying that he was hiking toward
Garlock Road. After finding the truck, we looked for tracks.
The area had been walked over by others, and we were unable to
identify Hise's track. IWVSAR searched a wider area on two quads
and an off-road motorcycle. One member of IWVSAR joined us for
tracking. We divided into three teams-one to search around the
truck to find the correct track and two to head down the large
drainage toward Garlock Road. We found a wrecked truck with a
June 2005 CA decal well off of any road. I called the truck's
plate number in to Sgt. Kirkland to see whether it was connected
to the search. It was registered to one of the reporting parties
who were with Hise when they abandoned his truck. We failed to
find any positive tracks and reached the Garlock Road by mid-afternoon.
By the time we retrieved our vehicles at the top of the mountain,
daylight was waning, so we went home to try again the next day.
Mary Schmierer agreed to be the coordinator for the second day
with Al Green, Dan Bishop, and Tom Sakai joining Breitenstein,
Hueber, and me. We met on Garlock Road at the start of EP100
at 0800 Thursday morning and discussed a new plan with Sgt. Kirkland
and IWVSAR. CLMRG split into three teams, with Hueber as the
radio relay, to search a major drainage between the truck and
the tunnel. IWVSAR would work up the canyons from the bottom
and to the east on their vehicles.
About an hour after heading down, just below the confluence of
the three drainages, Green and Sakai found a single track with
a good match to the description of Hise's footprint. Shortly
after that, Breitenstein and Bishop found the same track coming
into the middle drainage and heading toward Green and Sakai.
Green and Sakai found a shirt and some old fireman's pants about
a half-mile from the confluence. The shirt matched one in a picture
I had seen of Hise. About the same time that the tracking became
difficult, as Bishop, Breitenstein, and I were trying to catch
up, Bishop found a credit card embossed with Hise's name. We
were sure now that we were on the correct track. Green and Sakai
found a new Bic lighter a short way down the canyon as the tracking
got even more difficult.
We lost the track near the point where the canyon opened up at
a makeshift shooting range about a half-mile from Garlock Road.
We regrouped with the IWVSAR members who were searching below
the range and did a line search down to the highway with no luck
in picking up the track.
After a break for lunch, we did another smaller line search between
the area we had searched the day before and the main line today
while IWVSAR searched the south side of the highway. From the
start of the canyon, we searched the ridges above both sides of
the canyon and the middle trying to pick up the track. As the
light faded along with our energy, we called off the search for
the day.
We debriefed with a plan to do a major push on Saturday with more
Kern County teams. When I called Sgt. Kirkland about noon the
next day, he told me that Hise had been found from the air by
Deputy Tim Posey. Posey had been assisting Sgt. Kirkland in the
search and had returned with a helicopter to search where we had
lost the track the day before. Hise had at some time crossed
out of the canyon he was hiking in into the canyon just to the
west and had died near the bottom of that one.

Not quite an operationJuly 2005
Yosemite National Park
Debbie Breitenstein (Reporter)
I was contacted by three separate parties requesting the Group's
aid in a search for Hyundo Ahn,
a Korean exchange student at UC Davis: Mark Buffum, an unknown
friend of Ahn's family, and a member of the Korean Consulate in
the Bay Area. Ahn had gone to Yosemite on June 20 to hike the
John Muir trails. He picked up his permit on June 21 and was
seen on the trail on June 22. He was
not reported missing until July 21, when he missed a flight home.
I told them all that we would be willing to search but that we
must operate through the proper channels. To participate in a
search, we must be requested by the responsible agency (Yosemite
National Park in this case) with approval by OES and the Kern
County Sheriff. We had not received such a request.
Ahn's backpack was found on August 5, and his body-apparently
washed downstream from a stream crossing-was found the next day
The official report is at http://www.nps.gov/yose/news/2005/asar0809.htm.

TRIP REPORTS

Granite Peak, Montana (12,799 feet elevation)
18-23 August 2004
By Bob Huey
Tom Roseman and I rented a car Wednesday at noon and left about
1600 after I finished work. We drove to the north side of Salt
Lake City and slept in the car at an RV park from 0300 to 0600.
There was a lot of construction on Interstate 15 from Las Vegas
through Salt Lake, but we missed it all driving late at night.
Thursday, we drove up I15 through Utah and Idaho. In Southern
Montana, we got on I90 through Butte, where we stopped for lunch.
(It's a big strip mining community.) We went shopping there
because one of us had left the stove and cook gear on the kitchen
shelf at home. We then drove through Bozeman to Columbus 30 miles
west of Billings, where we turned south. We stayed at a small
motel in Absarokee. Nice place! We ate a steak dinner at a local
restaurant and got a good night's sleep.
We got up at 0600 Friday morning, had a good breakfast at a local
café, and drove to the road head by 0900. The road head
is at the Mystic Lake power plant at around 7,500 feet of elevation.
We had talked to the Park Ranger Station on Thursday and reviewed
the weather reports-scattered showers on Friday and CLEAR on Saturday.
Hiking in was pleasant until we got to Froze To Death Plateau,
where we experienced the scattered showers. Froze to Death Plateau
is at 10,000-11,500 feet and is 3-4 miles across to the saddle
where we camped. We had gained 5,330 feet in 8 hours.
Two other teams were behind us (total of five climbers), and three
or four tents were higher on the ridge when we arrived at our
campsite at 11,500 feet. We discussed strategies for climbing
with such a large crowd the next day and decided we would sleep
in and leave late in the morning (0600). One team had made three
attempts at the peak and been turned around each time by weather,
but the forecast for Saturday was clear. We had a good shelter
and a pleasant night.

We woke up at 0400 and decided that since we were up, we might
as well leave early. It was still dark after breakfast, so we
took a short nap and left the campsite at 0515. No one in any
of the seven tents we passed was up! We crossed the saddle at
Tempest Mountain at around 0600 and followed the ridgeline and
slopes down about 700 feet to the saddle between Tempest and Granite.
We expected to follow the pictures from our guidebook to the
summit. The pictures didn't match, but we easily picked our way
up the rocky ridge and slope to a point that overlooked them.
Route finding was straightforward (even without the guide) up
through two chimneys and over the next ridge. Then, we did some
more difficult route finding on third, fourth, and low fifth class
rock to a keyhole that was 30 feet from the summit. We were joined
just below a fifth class move on the ridge by a young man who
said he had been following us and had left his two teammates behind.
We summited in 3 hours and 45 minutes-with a gain of 3,150 feet.
We took pictures on the summit and left the young fellow there
to wait for his friends. However, minutes after we left the summit,
it began to hail, snow, and blow! We found ourselves in a minor
blizzard for about a half-hour as we picked our way down. Our
new friend joined us, and Tom gave him a quick lesson in rappelling.
We rappelled down two sections and carefully picked our way across
wet rock to a place that was solid just as the snow stopped.
We were able to downclimb the chimneys without a rope and got
back to our campsite with no further weather outbreaks in about
the same time it took us to climb to the summit. Our new friend
offered us a free meal in Billings the next night if we were still
in the area.
We met two other climbers near the first ridgeline of Granite
who were going to attempt the summit, but we saw no one else from
the seven tents we passed or the people we met on the way in.
Apparently, everyone else decided not to do the peak because
of the weather. We met a mountain goat at the deserted high camp
near Tempest Mountain on our way back. It posed for pictures
and seemed undisturbed by having us near.
At our campsite, we watched a severe weather front with booming
thunder and some lightning pass the ridgeline and valley to our
east, and we debated staying for the night. The squall lines
passed through about every half-hour, and we got some sprinkles
at our campsite, but we decided we were in no danger of an electrical
storm, so we packed up and left at about 1400. Going across Froze
To Death Plateau, we got hammered with hail and hard rain for
two hours-but no lightning. By the time we got across the plateau,
the squall lines had all moved on, and it was sunny the rest of
the afternoon.
We got down by 2000, drove to Columbus, ate at McDonalds, got
a motel room, and died!
I slept until 0800 on Sunday. We packed up and had a big breakfast
before heading home. We decided to drive straight south through
Yellowstone National Park and by the Tetons. We saw Old Faithful
erupt when we stopped there for about an hour. We drove through
intermittent heavy rain to the Tetons, which were were socked
in (although Mt. Moran was in the sun). We took pictures and
stopped in Jackson for dinner. We did some shopping, had some
Moose Drool beer (suggested by Mitch), and then drove to Evanston,
Wyoming, where we stayed with family friends of mine.
We left Evanston at 0930 on Monday and were home at 2030 that
night. The drive was about 2,700miles round trip. We
gained 8,480 feet in 21 miles round trip on our hike and climb.
A great adventure! Next year the Tetons?

Mt. Whitney1 May 2005
By Walter Runkle
Yesterday, I climbed Mt. Whitney. The snow conditions were excellent,
and a lot of snow boarders and skiers were out. One guy even
brought his dog along, and the dog (named Clyde-what else?) did
an impressive job of climbing to the summit. I got a couple of
pictures of him. I was able to get to the summit in less than
six hours, but I was glad to have an ice ax and crampons. The
BD Sabretooth Crampons I was trying out did an excellent job.
I came down the Mountaineer's Route because I wanted to glissade
it. I got good glissades down it, down from Iceberg Lake, down
"the step" above Upper Boy Scout Lake, and finally down
from the end of Clyde Meadow to Lower Boy Scout Lake. I left
the summit at 1401 and was back to my car at the Portal at 1632.
Only 2.5 hours. Because of the cool, cloudy day, I wasn't post-holing
on the way down.
For pictures go to http://members17.clubphoto.com/walter784953/3224592.
I recommend clicking on "View Large Images" for the
best results.

Owens Peak26 June 2005
By Walter Runkle
Curtis Davis, guests Evan Thomas, Charles Morton, Jay Kucera,
Dan Goriesky, Peter ?, and I were trying for speed. We timed
ourselves from the kiosk to the summit. We started up about 1705.
Charles, Evan, and I got a little off route and went too far
to the east. We heard Curtis in the correct gully and soon got
back on track. Charles was first to the summit with a time of
1:11 or slightly better. I was second with a time of 1:13:05.
Curtis, Evan, and Dan soon followed over the next few minutes.
Jay and Peter took a more reasonable pace and were on the summit
about 30 minutes later.
On the way down, Evan and I spotted a mother bear in a tree with
her cub. Evan and I took 50 minutes to get down, and we were
back at the car enjoying a beer at 1925. Charles and Dan got
down about 2000, and Curtis, Jay, and Peter were down by 2030.

McCady, Hitchcock, Muir, etcSep 17-18
By Bob Huey
Tom Brown and I started from the car at 9:30 up Whitney Trail
to Consultation Lake. The scree slope to Arc Pass was brutal,
and Tom stayed at the pass while I climbed McAdie with David Harris
(David is Dan Harris's oldest son and was in the area with friends
from San Jose to climb the 4th class route from the bottom of
Muir. Dan was a member of CLMRG in the 80s.) Tom and I went
down from Arc Pass and spent the night above Sky Blue Lake.
The next day, we followed the drainage from Sky Blue Lake back
around McAdie down to the lake on the west side of McAdie and
up the scree slope toward Discovery Pinnacle, where we dropped
our packs along the ridge and went to climb Hitchcock (8 hours).
We returned to our packs, joined the Whitney Trail below Discovery
Pinnacle, and got back to our car after a 14-hour day.